4

THE DECLINE AND FALL

CHAP.

LXV.

His firstadventuresA. D. I3G1-1370.

south of Samarcand , in the village ofSebzar, inthe fruitful territory of Cash, of which his fatherswere the hereditary chiefs, as well as of a tomanof ten thousand horse . 1 His birth k Avas cast onone of those periods of anarchy which announcethe fall of the Asiatic dynasties, and open anewfield to adventurous ambition. The khans of Za-gatai were extinct; the emirs aspired to independ-ence; and their domestic feuds could only be sus-pended by the conquest and tyranny of the khansof Kashgar , who, with an army of Getes or Cal-mucks , 1 invaded theTrausoxian kingdom. Fromthe twelfth year of his age, Timour had enteredthe field of action; in the twenty-fifth, he stoodforth as the deliverer of his country; and theeyes and wishes of the people were turned to-wards an hero who suffered in their cause. The

and the ninth of Timour , were brothers ; and they agreed, that theposterity of the elder should succeed to the dignity of khan, and thatthe descendants of the younger should fill the office of their ministerand general. This tradition was at least convenient to justify the firststeps of Timour ’s ambition (Institutions, pp. 24, 25, from the MS.fragments of Timour ’s History).

‘ Sec the preface of Shcrefeddin, and Abulfeda’s Geography (Cko-rasmiae, &c. Descriptio, pp. 60, 61), in the third volume of Hudson’sMinor Greek Geographers.

k See his nativity in Dr. Hyde (Syntgama Dissertat. tom. ii, p.466),as it was cast by the astrologers of his grandson Ulugh Beg . He wasborn, A. D 1336, April 0, 11° 57' P. M. lat. 36. I know not whetherthey can prove the great conjunction of the planets, from whence, likeother conquerors and prophets, Timour derived the surname of SahebKeran, or master of the conjunctions (Bibliot. Orient, p. 878).

1 In the Institutions of Timour, these subjects of the khan of Kash-gar are most improperly styled. Ouzbegs, or Uzbeks, a name whichbelongs to another branch and country of Tartars (Abulghazi , p. v, c.5, p. vii, c. 5). Could I be sure that this word is in the Turkish origi-nal, I would boldly pronounce that the Institutiors were framed a cen-tury after the death of Timour , since the establishment of the Uzbeksin Transoxiana.